Once upon a time in Hollywood, an extensive list of restricted words and phrases included “hell”, “damn”, “pansy”, “tom cat” and “hold your hat.”
Fifteen years ago, there were ructions between the Motion Picture Association (MPA)’s ratings board and the makers of The King’s Speech, the lovely tame film in which the king discovers that his stutter stops when he uses swear words, chiefly the f**k word. Though integral to the plot, they limited the film to an R rating (under 17s must be accompanied by an adult) for “some language.”
In the PG-13 (parents strongly cautioned) cut for cinemas, all but one of the offending expletives were dubbed over with “s**t.”
How quaint, you may be thinking. A few weeks ago, arguing against the shamrock ceremony in the White House, I recommended a three-word riposte instead. The first word was “go” and the third was “yourselves”; the middle one was obvious.
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Vulgar, yes. Pragmatic, no. Of their time, maybe. Either way, my words will not incite a war, mass murder or global economic mayhem. And this is not the US, where the F-word retains such potency that in a 2023 survey of American parents, six in ten felt films containing the word should have an R rating.
So from all that we might infer that the Maga/Evangelical heartlands must be horrified by their president’s violent stream of obscenities addressed to an enemy state on the most important day in the Christian calendar. But they cannot be – or allowed to pretend to be – remotely surprised.
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Donald Trump would just be another angry, incoherent old man shouting at the clouds were it not for the millions and millions of Americans – never mind the useful idiots here and elsewhere – who support him. That hard-core support amounts to no more than one third of the US electorate, yet people across the globe are wondering how it is possible that one such man – without the mandate of the American people, without the US Congress, without the support of its traditional allies and supporters – can upend a world economy. Schools are being forced to close in Bangladesh once a week because of Donald Trump. Energy bills everywhere are skyrocketing because of him. A world recession is a real prospect because of him.
Susan Glasser, the New Yorker writer, author and long-time Trump-watcher, recalls during Trump’s first term, his then friend and adviser Chris Christie became so frustrated listening to a panel talking about Trump tactics and strategy that he jumped in to say that Trump was not playing chess, nor even checkers; he was just trying to get through the next 10 minutes.
He was still just a presidential candidate over 10 years ago when The New York Times published an astoundingly long list of all the people, places and things he had insulted on Twitter since declaring. The poverty of vocabulary and imagination in the insults was notable even then.
Media such as The New York Times and Associated Press had to revise their policies to allow for the use of previously unacceptable words in their reporting.
His speeches were never coherent. The difference as he approaches 80, seemingly unhealthy with unexplained bruises on his hands, is that he rambles on for longer (watch his treatise on Sharpies at a cabinet meeting). His rally speeches have ballooned in length and there are growing signs of disinhibition. Even before Sunday’s foul-mouthed eruption, he was using more swear words in public. The great flaws of his personality that were always there have been amplified and accelerated by his ageing and the failure of sycophants and enablers to provide any guardrails.
When he openly used the f**k word last June in a rant about Israel and Iran, analysts and supporters rushed to explain their frustrated president was just letting rip over the collapsing ceasefire. This, they argued, was precisely the “authenticity” that Americans had voted for – “just Trump being blunt”. The real Donald Trump, says Glasser, is to be seen not in the self-interested White House sources but in his late night rants and early morning posts on social media. The sleepless Donald Trump is the true Donald Trump. So there is no mystery to him.
It’s the performative nose-holding and moral relativism of his Evangelical enablers and voters that remains the stunning feature of this era. On Easter Sunday, their social media response to the profane, incontinent rage and mass murder threats in Trump’s post was telling. Erick Erickson, a self-described Christian broadcaster, conceded on Twitter/X that the post was inappropriate, “but if I have to choose between this and Trans Recognition Day or whatever on Easter, okay”.
Not long ago, US right-wing broadcaster and podcaster, Greg Kelly, announced he was “frowning upon offensive vulgarity” and favoured a ban on the f-word. On Sunday, he celebrated Trump for “keeping it real ... This is the way people TALK. Get Over it ...”
Kelly is a classic of the Maga swerve. Maga’s red lines were the “forever wars” and the Epstein files until Trump obliterated the lines – and Maga saluted. Erickson’s worldview is the routine false binary: people being blown to hell versus some accommodation to a tiny marginalised group. And no mention of Epstein.
But confusion and splits are appearing among the faithful, even in the Trump manosphere. Maga’s fealty was always about exalting the man who identified, punished and humiliated their perceived enemies. Now their very identity is at stake and it’s every man for himself. So the world watches and waits for just one among them in the White House to be brave, to step up, speak out and remind us that genuine American patriots will prevail.
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